


Organza, Honey, and Sun

by Acai



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Found Family, High School AU, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mafia and Exy undertones, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pining, Recovery, Slow Burn, Team as Family, coffee shop AU, neil (reluctantly) becomes attached while on the run, updates every Monday, wymack's bunch of raggedy teen bastards work in a coffee shop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acai/pseuds/Acai
Summary: After six years on the run, Neil Josten knew his rules better than the back of his hand.He knew how to blend in, stay quiet, and not get distracted. But Columbia, South Carolina was full of enough distractions to make even Neil nervous. Distractions like the broken Son of Exy, an unoffending coffee shop, and a school rivalry.And, of course, Andrew Minyard.





	1. 1 - Manchmal geht's halt schief

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr: 12am
> 
> Thank you to everyone who let me ramble about this idea until it finally happened!

 

There were seashells in the floor of the Fort Lauderdale airport. 

It was a small detail, but Abram remembered clinging to it at the time, trying to focus on something to calm himself down from the pounding adrenaline that always came with flying and being in airports.

They’d been to Florida once before, briefly dipping through the top on their way to Tuscaloosa. It had looked different from Fort Lauderdale had. 

There weren’t any bags waiting for them in the baggage claim, so the second they had weaved their way out of the plane, Abram and his mother were heading for the exit. His mother set to hailing down a cab with a calm determination that Abram knew meant she already had their next plan set up. In between identities like this, it was always the easiest to read her.

That may have been why she hated it so much. 

His mother would keep an eye out in the cab. She’d survey the driver, their surroundings, their route, the people they passed, who looked at them and who followed them, and she’d retain it all for later in case they ever happened to pass by a familiar place. 

If Abram watched, too, it would only draw attention to the fact that they were watching. Instead, he allowed himself one cab right to adjust. 

The last four years of their lives had been spent in Europe. They had touched down briefly with his mother’s family in London, a quick and anxious affair that had both comforted and disturbed his mother further. They’d stayed long enough for his mother to acquire European forgeries, and the second they had them, they left for Germany. 

One year in Trier, in Germany. One year in Vienna, in Austria. One year in Lugano, in Switzerland. Before those, it was a year in Rouen, France, preceded by five months in Montreal. 

For those years, English had been for tourists and fleeting sentences between them in moments of danger. Europe had been walking most places, old brick streets, and hundred-year-old houses had been ‘new.’ In the time they’d lived there, he’d driven maybe one or two cars with automatic gears, not manual, and he’d grown accustomed to meters, grammes, and Celsius. 

Now Abram gave himself thirty minutes to acclimate. 

He pulled his hood up around his face, slouching down in his seat. It blocked out the majority of his view through the window, but it obscured him from anyone outside’s view just as well. 

Outside, it looked hot even in March. Palm trees dotted the side of the road, lined up in dry mulch. When they had boarded their plane in Lugano, it had been drizzling and forty degrees colder. 

In his head, Abram counted up and down in every language that he knew to try and soothe the thrill of anxiety that was starting to thrum under his skin. 

They drove in silence for nearly two hours until they reached Port St. Lucie, where they got in another cab and drove for another hour and a half to Titusville, a city comprised mostly of marshy, wet ground and space-centered tourist attractions. There, he hitchhiked with his mother far enough to walk to the nearest junkyard and find a decently working car to bring them the rest of their way. 

By the time midnight came, they were in a ratty, hail-damaged Jetta and making their way through Florida along the coast. By the time seven in the morning came around, they were stopping in a motel in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Abram hadn’t slept since before their flight, but he could already feel that he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. 

His mother didn’t look anywhere near tired as she climbed out of the car. If they’d wanted to, they could have been all the way to Virginia Beach by nightfall. Any further, and they’d be brushing arms with Nathan Wesninski’s territory. It felt stupid to even be stopping in South Carolina, or snaking their way up the East Coast. It felt like asking for trouble that they weren’t ready to receive. 

His mother wouldn’t make a stupid choice for no reason. If they were in South Carolina, then they were in South Carolina for a reason. The only thing that Abram could think of was business there. An underworld contact they needed a favor from, fixing them up with updated falsified American IDs; whatever it was, it would be quick. They would be in and out, and then they’d be on their way to wherever they needed to go next. 

Before they’d left the country, he had always felt far away from Maryland. Now, even the thought of being in America was stifling. It felt like they had walked right into a bear trap after being an ocean away for so long. 

When Abram’s mother emerged from the main office and started up a flight of stairs, Abram took his cue. He grabbed his duffle and followed her from the car, taking the steps up two at a time. He locked both locks on the door behind him and slid the deadbolt into place. 

His mother only spared a moment to study him before opening her bag and pulling out her cluster of papers from her own duffle. 

Abram left her to her harried work, retreating to the bathroom and closing the door behind him.

He set his duffle bag down on the toilet seat, taking a minute to stretch all of his stiff limbs out. Long drives in the car were nothing new, but it was the longest drive they’d been on in a while. He had a feeling they weren’t done driving just yet, either.

At some point in time, Abram’s hair had been auburn, and his eyes had been blue. Now, a yet-to-be-identified kid stared back at him with brown eyes and checked brown hair for any trace of auburn. Before they’d left Switzerland, Abram and his mother had dyed their hair and bought new contacts. Two days ago, he’d been blond with green eyes. It made it easier to make a shift into whoever this was going to be.

He’d lingered too long in the bathroom now just to leave, so he turned the shower on and peeled his clothes off. 

The shower was exactly what was to be expected of any crummy old motel shower. The water pressure was practically nonexistent, and it was impossible to tell the last time that it had been cleaned; but a hot shower was nothing to gripe about. So he set to work cleaning up as quickly as he could, trying for any semblance of cleanliness that he could get. 

The weak spray of water felt more like a drizzle than a shower, but it was still hot enough to make Abram want to linger there for longer than he could allow himself. There was a dizzying part of him that wanted to press his forehead to the wall and stand in the spray until it grew cold. 

But there was a laundry list of reasons why he couldn’t do that, so he fumbled for the knob and turned the water off before he mother could come after him for taking too long. He didn’t bother drying off, tugging his clothes back on unceremoniously and running a hand through his hair. 

The mirror was foggy when he turned back to it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care too much. Whoever looked back at him, they would terrify him.

_ Manchmal geht's halt schief. _

Abram slung his duffle strap back over his shoulder and opened the door to the bathroom, feeling the heat from his shower mixing with the chilly motel room air. 

His mother was still on her bed, but now her papers were spread out about her. She only spared him a glance when he walked in before turning back to them; but when he passed by her to his side of the bed, she held out a paper for him without looking up. 

Abram pulled it from her grasp, already aware of what would be written on it. 

In the six years it had been since they’d first run when he was ten, Abram and his mother had stayed in twenty two different cities and had twenty two different personas. Counting the identity that he’d had before they’d run, this would be his twenty fourth. 

Nathaniel Abram Wesninski was sixteen years old and from Maryland, blue eyes and auburn hair. Neil Josten was seventeen and from Iowa, brown eyes and black hair. 

Neil had done enough sitting and thinking for one day, and he resigned himself to pulling out a book and reading by the grimy lamplight. Either he’d get tired enough to get some sleep or he’d make the night tick by more quickly, but either way it was a better way to spend his time than staring blankly off into space any longer.

He would have a whole other car ride to do that in the morning.

/ / 

Neil hadn’t spoken to his mother since they boarded their flight in Lugano. From the time he woke up in the morning, after eventually falling asleep with his back to his mother and a gun under his pillow, to the point where they reached Columbia, neither of them had anything to say to the other. 

Sometimes his mother’s quiet was a relief. If it was this sort of quiet, where there was simply nothing important enough to say, then it gave him time to think. Other silences, the ones borne out of an agitated state of being or tension, were enough to make him feel sick with anxiety. 

But this was fine.

It was closer to the woman who he’d known when he was much younger than this. The woman who’d woken him up in the middle of the night by carrying him down the stairs and through the tunnel connecting the garage to the basement. The woman who she’d been then had read to him at night and snuck him  _ latkes _ on special occasions. 

Somewhere between eight years and twenty two cities, he’d lost his mother. He wasn’t quite sure where.

It was noon when his mother pulled into an apartment complex in Columbia. 

As far as shady, pay-by-the-month apartment complexes went, the one that his mother had settled on wasn’t terrible. Neil waited in the car while she went in, how he always did, and then followed her up when she returned, how he always did. 

They continued not talking as his mother tested the locks and as Neil checked closets and cupboards. She’d probably had one of her contacts check the apartment for bugs or safety breaches while they’d been staying at the motel in Murrells Inlet, but that wouldn’t stop them from checking again.

It was a studio apartment, probably the cheapest one his mother had been able to find. They didn’t need a lot of space. More space meant more area to keep an eye on, and they didn’t need privacy. 

Neil gave the kitchen and bathroom a once over while his mother moved on to check the windows. They’d done this plenty of times. 

His mother would go to pick up the bare essentials for the apartment soon. A mattress, a blanket. Cutlery and plates. Soap. Neil would go to get food, and they’d meet back at the apartment while they were done. They wouldn’t talk until tomorrow, not until they had to start figuring out what they were going to be doing for the next few months of their lives. 

His mother closed the blinds before leaving. She went past each window, giving each one last check before snapping the blinds shut as tight as they would go. If she was feeling extra cautious, she would pick up curtains at the store, too. 

She only stopped next to him for a second, just long enough to ghost a hand across his back, and then she was holding the door open for him to leave first. She would follow and lock the door behind her. His mother always kept the key. 

Neil left first, gripping his duffle strap with one hand while the other slid into his pocket in an attempt to play it casual. 

The first day in a new city was always the worst. It was always the tensest day, and he never knew quite how he was supposed to act. 

The apartment his mother had chosen was close enough to the school, grocery store, and a stubby looking strip of stores that it wouldn’t be suspicious of him to walk everywhere, which left the car for his mother. Two hours was their limit. Two hours to get where they were going, get what they needed, and get back. Two hours and one minute would be unacceptable. Two hours and thirty seconds would be unacceptable. And two hours exactly would be thin ice. 

Neil would only need a fourth of that amount of time, so he didn’t rush while he walked. Instead, he took in the people around him, carefully cataloguing their faces and personalities, who they were with and what they were doing. And he thought about Neil Josten, and who he was going to be. 

Columbia bordered on the campus of the University of South Carolina, which meant college students. The population wasn’t big enough to crowd the streets, but it was big enough for trendy shops to line the streets. A mediocrely large, young population would he would need to go for someone up-to-date on trends, but not too obviously wealthy or poor if he wanted to blend in. 

The outfit that he’d left in would work for the time being. It wasn’t ratty, but it wasn’t exciting, either. It was as bland as he could manage without looking depraved. 

The walk to the grocery store took fifteen minutes, and then Neil spent another twelve inside getting the bare necessities. Cup noodles. Granola bars. The nearby college was a blessing, for at least one reason, because it meant he could take more than an average amount of the cheap foods. The cashier would assume he was a broke college student, and it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. 

He wrapped up, carrying his bags and checking the time on his watch. He still had nearly fifty minutes before he even needed to start back. Neil could start back early. It was the obvious solution. If his mother found out he’d done anything else, she’d be furious. He’d feel it for weeks. 

But fifty minutes sitting alone in the eerie studio apartment didn’t hold any sort of appeal for Neil.

He tried to convince himself that he’d made up his mind to go home, but the restless half of his mind had already decided that since, technically, his mother had never specifically made a rule about heading back directly, then it would be alright for him to take a little time. 

Neil did his best to keep his eyes forward while he walked, but he couldn’t help trailing his vision along the storefronts. A chiropractor. A student loan office. Three consecutive clothing shops. An antique store. A body shop. And, wedged in between a calligraphy shop and a run-down Thai restaurant, was a coffee shop. 

The rest of the stores on the street had big, open windows that let the world peer in and catch glimpses of what was going on inside of them. 

The coffee shop had plastered its windows with posters and fake potted plants, obscuring the entirety of its interior from passers-by. 

Before Neil could listen to the rational half of his brain, he was slipping inside. 

The interior of the coffee shop was dimmed in contrast to the outside. It was probably why they’d done their best to obstruct the view through the window; to block out the sun for their modernized aesthetic. 

The walls and floor of the shop were made of dark wood, accented by the light tables, chairs, and counters. The potted plants had invaded the inside of the shop, too, and the lighting was warm in contrast to the fluorescents in the grocery store. Fairy lights were draped lazily along the walls and counters, adding more lighting, and one of the walls had been painted with chalk and plastered with pictures. 

If Neil stayed here, he would lose track of time that he couldn’t afford to waste. 

Not to mention, he couldn’t just loiter in a coffee shop for nearly an hour without buying anything. And wasting money wasn’t an option, either. They couldn’t work, and their supply was limited. 

But Neil couldn’t leave. 

It was the weariness in his bones that tugged him toward the counter, and his eyes scanned the menu board for less than a second before giving up. 

“Just a black coffee,” Neil said, pulling out his wallet instead of making eye contact with the girl behind the counter. “Small. Please.” 

There was a commotion in the back room behind the girl. She sniffed indifferently, tapping a button on the computer screen. 

“Anything else?” She asked, and turned back to the screen when Neil shook his head. “Two seventy-three.” 

Neil handed her the money, then shifted awkwardly a few paces to the right, unsure of where to stand while he waited.

It only took her a few moments before she was sliding the mug to Neil, and no sooner had he picked it up than she was gone, disappearing into the break room behind her. The commotion within was briefly louder as the door was pushed open, then once again as it swung back and forth petulantly for a moment, before the shop was quiet once more. 

Neil selected a table as tucked away as he could find it, content to square himself out of existence and focus carefully on his watch until it was time to go.

Neil nursed his mug while he sat, thinking. If he used his time to flesh out Neil Josten, then maybe he could justify the wasted minutes to himself. So he tucked his knees up to his chest and sipped slowly while he thought, picking a tangle of traits, memories, likes, and dislikes for Neil.

Neil would be quiet. He’d know how to bite his tongue and keep his calm. He would like math. Languages. English. Not so much science or history.

He was from Iowa, so a small town kid. Polite, respectful. Probably big on the outdoors and family-type values. An only child who moved to South Carolina with his mother for her job after his parents split up. His father had a home-owned business back home, and his mother had other interests when they divorced. 

Neil put his coffee down, pushing it across the small table in front of him to give himself room to fold his arms and place his head down on top of them. He’d slept a lot on the plane and on the drive up, even a little at the motel before they’d driven the last stretch up, but he was always tired when they ended up somewhere new. It was a terrible habit, but he couldn’t help it. 

Still, he was careful not to fall asleep. Either he’d be late or get caught by his mother--the result of both instances would be his imminent death,--or he’d be found by someone else, in which case he’d also face some unpleasant and fatal consequences. So Neil stayed awake, jiggling his foot as he blinked lazily at the darkwood floorboards. 

He learned how to drive in his father’s truck. His best friend was named Amanda. He had a fat tabby cat. He was bitter about leaving it all behind, but felt sympathetic towards his mother enough to come with her. He’d been closer to her, anyway, but couldn’t help but feel a little sorry about moving away from everything he knew so quickly. 

The shop smelled like a mixture of coffee and chocolate. Either the mocha or the brownies’ scent was strong enough to waft around the store and make Neil’s stomach growl. And he didn’t even  _ like  _ mocha and brownies. 

Neil let his eyes slide shut, putting together a mental image of the house that Neil had left behind in Iowa, the fat cat on the porch and the truck parked on the road up front. 

He woke up to a bang, jolting back hard enough to slam into another hard surface. In the time that it took for Neil to bruise his own back, his hand shot forward to grab for a weapon, anything. 

And then he blinked, and he was staring blankly at his open, empty palm. His coffee mug was knocked over onto the floor, thankfully not broken, but clattering loudly and leaking the bit of coffee that had been left in the bottom. 

Next to him, a boy looked unimpressed. 

Everything  _ about  _ him looked unimpressed. He was probably the same age as Neil, give or take a bit. He was dressed in all black, covered fully despite the heat; but the most notable thing about him was his height, or lack thereof. It would have made him less intimidating had Neil not looked him directly in the face. 

He had eyebags like bruises, prominent cheekbones, curly blond hair that spilled into his face, and a hard, blank expression on his face. His eyes briefly lingered on the coffee mug before lazily trailing back to Neil’s own eyes. 

“Leave,” the boy said.

Neil blinked at him, still blankly trying to pull his thoughts together. When it hit him, he jolted, his knee slamming into the bottom of the table. He jerked his wrist up to peer at his watch, nearly wheezing out a sigh at the twelve minutes that he had left. He’d meandered here in fifteen. He could run back in a lot less. 

_ “Leave,” _ the boy repeated.

“Knock it off, Andrew,” the girl behind the counter chided him. The boy didn’t even waver, glowering at Neil where he sat. 

“This isn’t a daycare. Go nap somewhere else,” Andrew demanded, knocking Neil’s grocery bags closer to him with a foot in a silent show of support for his claim. 

Neil gathered up his bags, picked up his mug up to drop off on his way out, and blotted up the spill with a napkin. In the thirty seconds that it took, Andrew had peevishly slid into the chair that Neil had just been sitting in. He continued to scowl the entire time, his eyes never leaving Neil. His gaze made Neil’s skin crawl, and Neil didn’t particularly have anything to say to him. 

He set the mug on the counter he’d picked it up from before he left. The girl wiping down the espresso machine gave him a half-apologetic shrug, and Neil thanked her for the coffee.

Neil played it cool all the way out of the coffee shop, but the second he stepped back into the bright sun, he took off running. His feet pounded against the pavement, but the only thing he focused on was wasting as little time as possible while coming up with a good excuse. 

He made it back to the apartments with three minutes to spare, then spent one of them stretching and breathing deeply to hide the fact that he’d run the entire way back. 

When he knocked on the door, his mother swung it open almost immediately. Her eyes scanned him the way that they always did, flicking deliriously up and down and left and right as she did her best to pick apart his secrets. If Neil were anybody else, she would be able to. She always knew how to look at someone and tell with a glimpse who had information and who could be killed from the very beginning to balance the numbers.

But Neil had been raised by her. She taught him everything she knew, fiercely devoted to saving him. It worked against her in moments like these, because he knew now how to lie to her. 

She wasn’t satisfied by what she found, but she stepped aside to let him in anyway. Neil headed for the kitchen to put the food away. As he put the food into the cupboards, not unpacking the food from the grocery sacks, he could feel her eyes burning holes in his back.

Neil wouldn’t let her know about falling asleep in public. She’d be angry enough to leave him with a lesson he’d feel for a few days at least, and Neil intended to avoid that. But it wasn’t the end of the world, and it was over with and under the bridge now. 

Still, and despite that, Neil felt like he’d come home with a secret to keep. 


	2. avant de me traverser l'esprit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it nap time now?” Andrew pulled open the fridge and selected a breakfast sandwich.
> 
> “Those aren’t for you,” Dan said, ignoring his question. She shot the sleeping kid a glance anyway. “You aren’t even supposed to be back here.”
> 
> Andrew peeled open the sandwich and popped it into the warming oven. “We should string up little bunnies and kittens. You know, to decorate the daycare.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a million to Mada @tempastry for editing! 
> 
> My tumblr: 12am
> 
> This fic is going to be alternating POV's throughout, but this is the only chapter that will do any retelling. From here, each chapter will progress the story rather than just retelling from a different perspective--and even this chapter only retells slightly. 
> 
> This is the last introduction, so we'll really get going from this point. Thank you so much to everyone who's recommended this fic and supported it so far!

_ je me demande si vous regardez des deux côtés avant de me traverser l'esprit _

Technically, Nicky was the one who worked at the coffee shop.

When they first moved in with Nicky, he’d been the one to make all the arrangements. Aaron hadn’t been even the slightest bit of help, unsteady and unfocused from his new sobriety, and Andrew hadn’t been willing to offer up any effort for a man he didn’t know, but Nicky hadn’t complained. 

He’d sorted out the house, a job at Eden’s, and their car situation. He’d been young then, even younger than he still was, and Andrew was waiting with sadistic amusement for him to fail. Instead of failing, though, Nicky just spent long hours on the phone, doing--what Andrew figured at the time, at least--what seemed to be a lot of fast-talking in German, and what Andrew pieced together later on to be a lot of calling home to his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s family. 

And so Nicky, with the help of Erik and Erik’s family, figured out the entire  _ being an independent adult  _ situation within the span of two weeks, and that was that. 

Whatever help Nicky accepted at first, he didn’t continue to accept it. Maybe it was that he knew he didn’t have the money then to get what he needed, barely old enough to even be seen as a legal adult and never having been on his own before. Andrew was fairly sure, but not entirely certain, that the house, at least, was acquired only with the help of the Klose family. 

He had no doubt that Nicky’s guilt complex meant that it was a loan, not just a gift of support, whether the Klose’s wanted it that way or not. 

Which meant that Nicky worked. A lot. 

He claimed it was because he needed to, because that’s what he was there for, but Andrew wondered more than once if it was because he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he suddenly found spare time on his hands. 

So Nicky invented a hundred and one reasons to always be in over his head with work, and somehow they managed like that. 

While Andrew and Aaron went to school, Nicky worked full time at Eden’s, a club they weren’t  _ technically  _ allowed into but were never barred from. And when that hadn’t been enough to occupy him, Nicky shifted his schedule around enough to make time for a second job. 

For his second job, he’d chosen The Foxhole, a coffee shop that was just boring enough you’d miss it if you weren’t really looking. 

Nicky would drop them off at school, head to his shift, and get off work two hours after they finished with their classes. If they wanted to, Andrew and Aaron could have just gone home after that. But, for reasons neither of them discussed and which they both adamantly pretended didn’t exist, they would go to The Foxhole instead and wait there until Nicky finished. 

Nicky never mentioned it beyond a, “you can leave whenever you want, you know,” but it was obvious how much it confused him. Why the twins would ever want to spend time around him, Nicky clearly didn’t know. Because it was, as Andrew quickly learned, a very  _ Nicky  _ thing to believe that he was utterly unwanted at all times. 

Andrew never corrected him, because it wasn’t his job to. But in a weird way it was Nicky’s complex myriad of issues that made him more trustworthy. Somehow, that meant  _ Nicky  _ was the most tolerable part of The Foxhole. 

Andrew would take a fork to the eyes before he admitted it. 

The coffee shop was owned by David Wymack, but was purchased by Kayleigh Day. It was run now by the owner alongside Betsy Dobson and Abby Winfield, who didn’t Kayleigh very well, but who had known David Wymack well enough to help with the renovations upon her death and stick around afterward.

The Foxhole had the potential to be popular. As a coffee shop, it especially should have done well in a town mostly populated by tired college students.  If Wymack had hired a competent and skilled group of employees, or fired the ones who turned out to be disappointments, then it would have gone somewhere. 

As it was, The Foxhole was owned by a tired, middle-aged man, managed by two tired middle-aged women, and staffed by a raggedy handful of petulant, problematic high schoolers. Andrew suspected, at first, that Wymack had slim pickings when it came to applicants. But he would come to see promising, bright-eyed kids come in for interviews and only roughed-up troublemakers ever be hired.

So Wymack was, in conclusion, a bleeding heart and an idealistic dreamer at best and an idiot at worst. 

Thursday afternoons, Nicky worked with Dan Wilds and Matt Boyd. 

Dan was tolerable, but more often than not Andrew found himself wishing she’d get the Spanish flu and be gone for a couple of weeks (or forever). On the other hand, while Andrew would never spend time around Matt, Matt had enough sense to leave Andrew be. He even had the decency to extend their mutual ignorance to the English class that they were unfortunate enough to share. 

Andrew found himself living through unspoken agreements just as much as spoken ones. 

Every day after school, Andrew would find Aaron in the same corner of the school with his friends, and every day Aaron would get up and leave when Andrew did. They did their best to pretend that  _ wasn’t  _ the case. Andrew just  _ happened  _ to pass by the corner where Aaron met up with his friends after school, and Aaron just  _ happened  _ to leave right as Andrew walked past each day. 

And they just  _ happened  _ to walk together to the coffee shop. 

Andrew figured he probably didn’t hate Aaron. Beyond that though, his guess was as good as anyone’s. 

The Foxhole was quiet and empty when Andrew walked in, which meant something chaotic was happening out of sight. Aaron, a rule follower until the end, picked a seat in a back corner, tucked his backpack under the table, and set to work pulling out sheets of paper for homework. If Andrew were to look inside his brain he’d probably just find math problems and documentaries. 

Andrew pushed behind the counter, and disappeared into the storage room further back. 

Inside the storage room Andrew found Matt looking lost, Dan holding a torn-up cheese danish, and Nicky on his stomach on the floor leaving chunks of danish across the ground in a trail.

“There’s a cat,” Matt informed him helpfully. “We’re trying to get rid of it before Coach finds out.” 

“I don’t think cats eat danish,” Dan said, handing her piece off to Matt. She made a point of brushing past Andrew on her way out to the front, and Andrew considered sticking a foot out to trip her in return. He didn’t. 

“They do eat cheese, though!” Nicky said, gesturing for another chunk. “Is Aaron out front?”

The second half of the question was directed to Andrew, who gave a helpful, “sold him,” before plucking the danish from Matt’s hands. 

“Maybe we prop the door open,” Matt suggested. “And then we can wait for it to leave on its own.” 

“And let other animals get in?” Andrew tore off a corner and ate it. 

Nicky was back to peering under the shelves. “She’s orange,” he informed them, extending his palm towards Andrew for another piece. “We’re probably scaring her.”

Up front, the espresso machine hissed loud enough to be heard through the door as it foamed milk. Andrew ate the last piece of the danish and, deciding he was no longer interested in the cat, didn’t offer back any insight. 

Matt suggested moving the dishwasher out of the way to get to her, which Nicky vetoed, citing his lack of strength. They briefly entertained the idea of scaring her out before deciding that was too mean, and at last they managed to agree on ‘ _ hope Coach doesn’t find out’  _ as a strategy. 

Matt was the first to give up and return to the front of the shop to help Dan out, taking a gallon of 2% with him. 

Nicky squirmed out from under the shelf where he’d been trying to reach the now hissing orange tabby, blowing hair out of his face as he sat back and regarded Andrew. 

Andrew learned a long time ago that Nicky was smarter than he seemed. Sometimes, when Nicky thought nobody was watching him he’d sober up enough for Andrew to know that his head wasn’t as empty as it seemed.

He only regarded for a moment, then grinned up at his cousin. Andrew scowled in return. 

“How much did you get for Aaron? Maybe we can have a nice dinner,” Nicky said, brushing off his pants as he stood up, and Andrew was only surprised for a moment that he’d been listening. “If you’re not going to do your homework or help out in the shop, maybe you’ll keep an eye on the cat for me. And get rid of it, if we’re lucky.” 

Just for that, Andrew decided he wouldn’t. 

Nicky didn’t stick around for a response, grabbing a wet wipe for his hands on his way past Andrew. He offered up another grin on his way out and Andrew did his best to glower back. 

When the door closed and Andrew found himself alone with the mangy beast, he at last allowed his curiosity to win. He lowered himself onto his stomach and peered at it, and it gazed back at him. 

It was smaller than Andrew was expecting. It couldn’t have been older than a few months, scrawny with patches missing from its already splotchy fur. It let out a hiss that was watered down by its tiny size and big ears. 

Andrew considered it for a moment, then sat back up. 

The door banged open, and Andrew jerked in response. Matt and Nicky were being herded into the back by Coach, who looked exasperated despite having only just begun his shift. Nicky and Matt were in the middle of half-hearted protesting, 

Coach sent Andrew a look. “I don’t remember hiring you.” 

“Sure you do,” Andrew replied, already weaving out of the backroom. “You hung my resume up on the fridge and everything.” 

Nicky placed a hand on Andrew’s head as he passed, and Andrew shoved him away. 

As soon as the door closed behind Andrew the clamor started up again. Up front, Dan was brewing a fresh batch of coffee. Aaron had vanished, probably into the conference room for more quiet. In his place was a ratty mop of black hair puddled in a gray hoodie. 

“Is it fucking nap time now?” Andrew pulled open the fridge and selected a breakfast sandwich. 

“Those aren’t for you,” Dan said, ignoring his question. She shot the sleeping kid a glance anyway. “You aren’t even supposed to be back here.” 

Andrew peeled open the sandwich and popped it into the warming oven. “We should string up little bunnies and kittens. You know, to decorate the daycare.” 

Dan didn’t give him a response, pouring her coffee grinds into the filter with more force than strictly necessary. 

Andrew watched her until the warming oven screamed to be opened, then he plucked the sandwich out. He waited until he was sure Dan was watching, and then he dumped everything but the sausage into the trash, dropped the sausage into a sandwich bag, and then left his new prize behind the counter as he went to go investigate. 

“Andrew,” Dan snapped.

“Shh,” Andrew chided her. “The baby is sleeping.” 

Andrew elected to ignore her huff, and found upon closer inspection that the kid must have been around his own age. He was lankier than he was tall, thin and withered looking, but undeniably young. Andrew had never seen him before. He was probably a Millport kid. Andrew would have recognized anyone from his own high school. 

Although he tried his best to interact with as few Palmetto kids as possible, he couldn’t stop his brain from remembering them all, the same way that it remembered everything else. 

When he decided he’d done enough looking, Andrew decided that he wasn’t much of a fan of the Millport boy. 

He raised a hand, then banged it down against the table as loudly as he could manage. Behind him, he could hear Dan knocking over a stack of plastic to-go cold cups with a curse. 

The Millport boy woke up with a jolt, slamming himself backwards while his hand shot out in the other direction. All that he accomplished was knocking over his own mug, which went clattering to the floor and spilled the last few sips of coffee left in it and then he sat and blinked into space, eyes staring blankly at his own hand. 

He was a stupid Millport boy. 

“Leave,” Andrew said, decidedly done with this interaction. 

The kid kept staring at his own hand, blinking dumbly. He had a stupid face, and his hair was messy enough that it spilled into his owlish brown eyes. 

Andrew hated brown eyes.

Growing more annoyed by the second, Andrew repeated,  _ “leave.” _

“Knock it off, Andrew,” Dan said, like she’d ever successfully managed to get Andrew to do anything before. 

“This isn’t a daycare,” Andrew said, wanting him gone and out of Aaron’s spot. “Go nap somewhere else.” 

He kicked the Millport boy’s grocery bags closer to him, in case his stubby arms couldn’t reach on his own. 

The kid finally reanimated, returned from the clutches of mental deadness, scrambling for his bag and to clean up the coffee on the floor. Andrew slid into his seat so that he wouldn’t think of returning to the spot he’d taken, and when Millport boy glanced back Andrew returned his gaze stonily. Dan had the decency to shrug at him. He thanked her, and the sound of his voice made Andrew scowl even harder at his back as he pushed his way out the door. It jingled shut behind him, and Andrew and Dan both waited in silence until he’d walked out of sight. 

Then Dan said, “what the fuck, Andrew?” 

“Whoops,” Andrew replied, pushing the table away from him as he stood back up and stretched, unbothered. “I woke the baby. Now he’s going to cry.” 

“I’ll ban you,” Dan threatened emptily, returning to wiping down the mastrina. 

She wouldn’t. Even if she wanted to Nicky would never allow it, and Coach seemed to be begrudgingly permitting it.

The noise in the back room had gone away. When Nicky reappeared at last, the room behind him was empty. Coach withdrew  to do paperwork, and he’d whisked Matt away with him. 

“Control your dog,” Dan said to Nicky. 

Nicky blinked, shifted his gaze to Andrew, and then looked back to Dan. He didn’t say anything and Andrew didn’t expect him to. 

The mastrina beeped to announce the end of its cleaning cycle, and just like that the shop returned to its usual ebb and flow. A woman came in looking dressed for work and ordered a flat white, Nicky took her order, and when he handed the cup to Dan the tension seeped away for another day. 

Andrew returned behind the counter to reclaim the sausage he’d stolen and brought it with him to go reinvestigate the space underneath the shelving. 

The cat was exactly where it was before, still looking pathetic and splotchy. Andrew lowered himself onto his stomach once again and reached into the paper bag. 

Smelling the sausage with a few hopeful sniffs in Andrew’s direction, the cat looked like it was contemplating moving. 

Andrew tore the sausage into chunks small enough for the little thing, sticking two under the shelf. Like Nicky tried earlier with the danish, he trailed it out from under the shelf. This time though, he sat up and scooted back until his back pressed against the wall. 

Then he waited. 

The thing about waiting was that Andrew was rather good at it. He spent a lifetime waiting, and even now he had plenty of everything from forever in his mind to occupy his time and his thoughts. If he wanted, he could just sit and wait until it was time to go. 

So he waited. 

Andrew waited and thought about the sign that was starting to become crooked outside of The Foxhole. He waited and thought about the Millport boy. He waited and thought about boring Aaron, studying quietly in the conference room. 

And eventually, a little orange face nosed out from under the shelf. 

Andrew waited some more, thinking about how many things there were that he didn’t want to think about. 

The wretched cat inched closer, inhaling each chunk of sausage in one big lick and then having the decency to look shy as it chewed. 

When it finally reached the end of the trail, which led to the last piece enclosed in Andrew’s hand, it nosed hopefully at his closed fist. It forgot all of its distrust in the timespan of a dozen bites of meat. 

“You, sir, are never going to make it in the real world,” Andrew informed it, but he opened up his hand and let the cat eat. When it finished, licking its lips widely and nudging around for more, and when it had at last come to the conclusion that there  _ was  _ no more, the thing sat down heavily and stared expectantly up at Andrew. 

“I’ve seen old rugs softer than you,” Andrew offered up. “Mangy bastard.” 

It didn’t move, and so Andrew made up his mind to pick it up and look it in the eyes. It didn’t squirm or protest, just stared back into Andrew’s eyes and existed there contently, so Andrew stuffed it into his hoodie to see how content it would be in there. 

The godless creature only poked its head back up out of the head hole. Andrew could feel its tiny paw on his neck. 

With one hand, he supported the cat through the hoodie. With his other, he sent Nicky an ‘ _ I’m leaving now’  _ text _. _

With the sorry-looking cat smuggled away like poorly-hidden contraband, he left through the back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> 
> My Tumblr: 12am 
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> Edits by @Tempastry on Twitter and Tumblr
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> Updates on Wednesdays!

**Author's Note:**

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